LUCKY SEVENTH
DOUBLEHEADER WIN
Delta Delta Delta sung to victory for the seventh consecutive time during the Greek Sing competition Sunday in Lantz Arena. PAGE 5
The Eastern softball team won its doubleheader against Tennessee State Saturday, while Sunday’s games against Belmont were rained out. PAGE 8
Dai ly Eastern News
THE
W W W .D A I L YE A S TE R N N E W S. C O M
Monday, April 20, 2015
“TELL THE TRUTH AND DON’T BE AFRAID”
VOL. 99 | NO. 137
CUPB brainstorms ideas to pay back state funds By Luis Martinez Administration Editor| @DEN_News
MACKENZIE FREUND | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WS
The girls of Kappa Delta sorority danced to songs that went along with their “Snow White” theme during Airband Saturday in Lantz Arena.
Fake it to make it
Greeks imitate artists with song, dance By Cassie Buchman City Editor | @DEN_News Chants and cheers echoed throughout Lantz Arena as fraternities and sororities took the stage with instruments given to them from birth, the bodies, for Airband 2015, one of Greek Week’s final competitions. They danced and mouthed words to popular songs in order to take first place this year. Greek Week Queen and King were announced and coronation Saturday. Delta Zeta took first place for sororities in Airband, while fraternities Pi Kappa Alpha and Sigma Phi Epsilon tied for first in the competition. Kappa Delta took second place, and in third place were Lambda Chi and Alpha Phi. Many of the sororities and fraternities performing at Airband had a theme, such as Delta Delta Delta, who had a circus theme complete with outfits of red jackets with gold patches on the shoulders. Delta Chi went after, exciting the audience as members danced to popular hits of boy bands such as One Direction and The Jonas Brothers. Delta Tau Delta incorporated elements of popular culture into their performance, as an alarm blared partway through their dance and
members emerged with white masks on while a voice-over announced the beginning of “The Purge.” They portrayed themselves as warriors in their performance, wearing scarves and carrying baseball bats. At one point, they even circled around one man wearing boxing gloves looking like he was getting ready for a fight. Pi Kappa Alpha members based their performance off the dance group Jabbawockeez and wore necklaces with money signs while dancing to songs like “All I Do is Win” by TPain. Sigma Alpha Epsilon danced in suits and ties, which members later shedded for T-shirts reading, “Let us take you out.” Kappa Delta interpreted the story of Snow White as members danced to the song “HeighHo” to portray the seven dwarves at work. Then, they danced with a glittery “poison” apple to “Toxic” by Britney Spears, and finally they woke up to the song “Flawless” by Beyoncé. Sigma Kappa brought the ‘80s back to the arena as members danced in tights, leotards and leg warmers to “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” by Whitney Houston ending their performance by holding up lit-up signs with “Sigma Kappa” written on them. After, Sigma Nu danced to Miley Cyrus
songs from throughout her career, even donning a blonde wig from her “Hannah Montana” days. Sigma Sigma Sigma members wore jail uniforms for costumes. Alpha Sigma Alpha followed them, wearing all black with gold shoes. Alpha Gamma Delta went for a rock-star theme, complete with one woman dropping her microphone after members were dancing. Delta Zeta went with a freak-show theme and started out with a woman in a Freddy Krueger costume, with some women putting on and taking off colorful, feathery masks throughout the performance. Alpha Sigma Tau went after Delta Zeta with a heartbreaker theme, where members danced in shiny gold shirts and black shorts. Alphi Phi had a time theme with a large calendar that members brought on stage. They had a different song for every season like in December when they danced to “All I Want for Christmas” by Mariah Carey. Sigma Pi then danced to “What is Love?” by Haddaway and “Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer. Sigma Chi performed to Motown classics in gold shirts, followed by Sigma Phi Epsilon, who pretended to be a part of NASA, with a table acting as a control board.
AIRBAND, page 5
Student government explains budget cuts By Luis Martinez Administration Editor| @DEN_News To fall in line with its new budget, the student government had to cut funds from professional services, non-employee travel, wearing apparel and other commodities. Student government also cut $600 from student payroll, which was $400 from the secretary positions and $100 from both the Webmaster and graphic design positions on student government. The student government association’s proposed budget was originally $42,035, and after the April 2 Apportionment Board meeting, the allotted budget for student government decreased to $38,200, which was $3,835 less than the original proposal. Shirmeen Ahmad, the student vice presi-
dent for academic affairs, said the executive board decided on what to cut from the budget based on how much money is used in each area. “We just really looked at the areas where we had known that we would have to cut, so we kind of had that planned,” Ahmad said. “For example, for First Night, we knew that we had some extra money in there that didn’t get used, so that was a good place to take out from.” Ahmad also said the process of deciding what areas to cut among the executive board members was like a negotiation, and the cuts were dependent on which areas used their funds consistently. “We looked at the budget right now and how much we had left and seeing the different areas, how much actually gets used,”
Ahmad said. She also said in terms of the budget next year, the student government would have to be more careful with its spending. “It just has to make us more frugal. We would have to make sure to consider when we’re doing events to really find co-sponsors to help us pay for different things, to do different things,” Ahmad said. “It’s just going to be having to make sure we always follow the budget and always know what we have to do with it.” While there are cuts to some events student government hosts during the year, Ahmad said there have not been any cuts to those events.
BUDGET, page 6
The Council on University Planning and Budget heard ideas on how Eastern would go about paying back a 2.25 percent cut to fiscal year 2015 funds from the state of Illinois. The cuts would come from the state appropriated funds handed out statewide for the current fiscal year, meaning Illinois universities would have to pay back some of the funds already given to them by the state. David Emmerich, the CUPB chairman, said the discussion during Friday’s meeting was to review options to go about paying back 2.25 percent of state appropriated funds. “Not all of the university’s money comes from the same source,” Emmerich said. “Some of that money comes from the state.” Emmerich said the state had provided Eastern with roughly $4.4 million in appropriated funds, and the state has requested nearly $1 million to be returned. The 2.25 percent cut totals out to roughly $989,100. President Bill Perry asked the council members their advice about the reduction to the 2015 fiscal budget. “There’s still some wrangling going over the 2015 budget because some of the cuts that have been made after the 2.25 percent cut in grants,” Perry said. Perry also said some of the cuts have created a lot of political push back in Springfield. Paul McCann, the interim vice president for business affairs, presented different options Eastern could take to go about paying back the 2.25 percent to the state. McCann said during the meeting, on top of the $989,100, Eastern also has to pay back $79,000, which was from telecommunication expenses. “We were notified that on top of the 2.25 (percent), we’ve got that $79,000 still sitting out there,” McCann said. “It’s roughly a million plus $79,000 that we have to come up with now.” McCann said the money from telecommunication is already handled, but it is not just the $989,100 Eastern is trying to find the funds for. “The options are some thoughts we had on how we might be able to solve the $989,100,” McCann said. “We have the ability to transfer about half a million dollars of projects within the deferred maintenance area over to campus improvements.” McCann said the projects being transferred fall within the area of campus improvement and that is why they can be moved over. McCann said one option could be moving some of the expenses of continuing education. He also said there were two additional options that could be used. “One of them is move some of the moneys that we’ve been able to accumulate in the equivalent reserve and use some of those dollars,” McCann said. “The final thing would be using some of our reserves, say within the telecomm, to cover some of the expenses.” Luis Martinez can be reached at 581-2812 or lpmartinez@eiu.edu.